So We Bought Another Land Cruiser

We bought another old Land Cruiser. This one’s a 1980 HJ45. It’s the 12 passenger troop carrier model. I know, I know. Just what we need, another vehicle. I’m so spoiled. I have the best wife in the world.

This one is coming to us from New Zealand too. No estimates on shipping times or anything like that just yet. We just did the deal today. There’s still many details to work out for the shipping process.

This HJ45 is all original, paint, wheels, everything. It’s a little rough but considering its age and the superficial rust I think it will be the start of a great project. It currently has the Toyota 6 cylinder diesel engine. I plan to swap that out for the smaller 4 cylinder turbo. We’ll get much better fuel efficiency from the 4 cylinder.

I wanted to get a Troopy for traveling. The BJ42 will be OK but it doesn’t have much room for all the gear necessary for backwoods camping trips. The back area in this thing is huge. It’s originally designed to carry 12 passengers. We’ll set it up to be a comfortable off-road camping rig. there’s plenty of room for us and two dogs to sleep in the back.

This Land Cruiser will be our escape from Maine for the two months each year between the end of spring skiing and the start of summer swimming at camp. I doubt we’ll take it anywhere this year but I plan to have it ready for traveling in the spring of 2009. We’ll travel the country in it visiting family along the way when we can. Maybe someday (if I’m lucky) we’ll drive it up to Alaska during the summer and Mexico in the winter.